The Habs went 2-1-0 during the first week of January and sit second in the Atlantic Division with a record of 23-13-6.<\/p>\n
The week started out with another chaotic comeback, this time against the Carolina Hurricanes, in which Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd dominated the third period in a 7-5 Habs win. The Canadiens were then shut out by the St. Louis Blues in a Saturday matin\u00e9e in a Jordan Binnington masterclass that ended two-zip. Montreal finished the week on a high note, taking down Dallas in overtime, 4-3.<\/p>\n
Montreal Canadiens\u2019 Three Stars<\/p>\n
Unsung hero\/Honourable mention: Noah Dobson (GP3 | G0 A0 P0)<\/p>\n
Noah Dobson certainly deserves some mention after his week. He was Montreal\u2019s de facto number-one defenceman, leading the team in ice time in most games with Matheson dealing with a couple of nagging ailments. Dobson is the Canadiens\u2019 only defenceman deployed on both the power play and penalty kill every game, and plays against the league\u2019s best on a nightly basis. Habs fans may still look at his cap hit and think it high, but defenceman like Dobson don\u2019t grow on trees, and without him it\u2019s a safe bet the Canadiens wouldn\u2019t be where they are.<\/p>\n
Third Star: Sammy Blais (GP 3 | G1 A1 P2)<\/p>\n
After being claimed on waivers by the Toronto Maple Leafs earlier in the season, then reclaimed by the Canadiens a few months later, Blais has had a tough road home to Montreal. Last week, he was a shining star in the bottom six. He managed two points on New Year\u2019s Day against the Canes and was a positive factor against the Blues. After being claimed by the Leafs in October, it\u2019s probably safe to say fans didn\u2019t expect to see him scoring goals in a Habs uniform in 2026, but Blais is cementing his role on this team.<\/p>\n
He played an effective week, using his body and decent footspeed to create chances while being effective defensively. His play has allowed Brenden Gallagher to skate through open ice instead of grinding along the boards, and the veteran has benefited from it.<\/p>\n
Second Star: Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd (GP 3 | G2 A2 P4)<\/p>\n
Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd has started to dominate games like Habs management hoped he would. He has 12 points in his last eight games and is playing with supreme confidence. He\u2019s showing the patience that was lacking over the last two years, and it paid off. Playing with Ivan Demidov has opened his world, and Oliver Kapanen\u2019s focus on two-way play means that Slafkovsk\u00fd has the opportunity to be the offensive leader on his trio.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re seeing a glimpse of what his prime could look like right now, and it\u2019s exactly what the Habs wanted. He was also one of the Canadiens\u2019 best forwards in the defensive zone, and is first amongst the Canadiens\u2019 forwards in blocked shots.<\/p>\n
First star: Lane Hutson (GP 3 | G2 A2 P4)<\/p>\n
Hutson is playing at a historic clip right now for a Montreal Canadiens defenceman. He has 14 points in his last nine games. No Canadiens defenceman has ever scored more than 85 points in a single season (Larry Robinson in 1977 at 26 years old), but at this point that\u2019s a question of when, not if, for Lane Hutson. After his recent performance he\u2019s now third in points and second in assists among NHL defenceman, elevating himself to the level of elite offensive players Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes.<\/p>\n
Offence aside, Hutson had a fantastic week defensively. He\u2019s becoming an elite stick-checker and is improving his rush defence every game. He averaged more than 26 minutes a night last week, consistently playing shifts longer than 1:15, and doing so with ease. Any questions on how he can handle minutes have been answered, and emphatically so.<\/p>\n
Laval Rocket player of the week<\/p>\n
Alex Belzile (GP 2 | G2 A2 P4)<\/p>\n
Alex Belzile\u2019s performance against the Utica Comet on Friday was enough to single-handedly save the Rocket\u2019s week from being a failure. That being said, Laval still put up two fairly abysmal performances against the worst team in the AHL.<\/p>\n
Things look effortless for Belzile right now, and you have to assume his name is right near the top of the Canadiens\u2019 call sheet \u2013 especially with Florian Xhekaj\u2019s penchant for turnovers right now.<\/p>\n
Next up<\/p>\n
The Habs will play three games in four days this week, starting with the Calgary Flames on Wednesday. They then take on the Panthers on Thursday, before a Saturday night matchup with the Detroit Red Wings. With all three games at the Bell Centre, Montreal is going to find out whether the lights at home really are too bright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Habs went 2-1-0 during the first week of January and sit second in the Atlantic Division with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-391039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}